aDNA and kinship in French Atlantic Facade Megalithic monuments
Résumé
Megalithic tombs are often the common burial place of numerous individuals. Their excavations have often revealed many skeletons, commonly very commingled, making the independent analyses of the individuals within challenging. However, the recent advances in ancient DNA recovery methods have allowed the analyses of individual skeletal elements, potentially shedding light on who was buried in these monuments. One important question pertaining to Megalithic tombs is why particular groups of individuals were buried together in distinct monuments.
Here, we present preliminary analyses of three Neolithic Atlantic Façade, French Megalithic monuments: Bougon F0 (n=9), Champ Chalon (n=33), Xanton-Chassenay (n=22). By sequencing the genome of multiple individuals from each, it has been possible to recover some of their familial relationships. In each of these monuments, siblings and/or parents have been found, suggesting that kinship played an important role in the decision to bury individuals in the same monument. Furthermore, present analytical methods only allow the detection of close relatives, making familial ties with the other individuals a possibility. Further genomic analyses will help to put these individuals in a broader context further identifying their geographic origin.